drumming from the heart.. the heart of our blessed earth mother...

The spirit drum is
our blessed earth
mother's sacred voice...

Did you know that...

We ALL KNOW how to drum...?

Over the years that i've been facilitating and offering space for sacred drum circles, i've had many, many people tell me (or believe) that they don't know how to drum... or wished they knew how...

Whenever i hear this question, i smile quietly to myself and simply reply by asking...

"Do you have a heart?...." 

"Yes..." 

 "So, of course you know how to drum - because you have come from your mother... and she came from her mother and she from her mother and so on and so on... " 

"You sooo know how to drum because the first sound you ever heard and felt was your mother's heartbeat pulse as soon as you were in her womb - the heart-song of the mother has always and continues to drum through your blood!"
-- weaver

The wonderful drummer and teacher Layne Redmond says it beautifully here...

Pachamama
our blessed earth mother...
art by weaver © 2005
tee @ redbubble ...

"It is often said that the first sound we hear in the womb is our mother's heartbeat. Actually, the first sound to vibrate our newly developed hearing apparatus is the pulse of our mother's blood through her veins and arteries. We vibrate to that primordial rhythm even before we have ears to hear. 

Before we were conceived, we existed in part as an egg in our mother's ovary. All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month-old fetus in the womb of her mother. This means our cellular life as an egg begins in the womb of our grandmother. 

Each of us spent five months in our grandmother's womb and she in turn formed within the womb of her grandmother. We vibrate to the rhythms of our mother's blood before she herself is born. And this pulse is the thread of blood that runs all the way back through the grandmothers to the first mother. We all share the blood of the first mother - we are truly children of one blood". 
-- Layne Redmond

the flicker...
the drummer...
the grandmothers...

So, i always say to folk... "Yes!...you know how to drum - you always have!".... get still - become quiet and listen... connect your feet to the mother of us all... feel her heart's-pulse rise within you and connect and she will teach you how to re-member - her...

Whenever i hear the cry of a flicker (woodpecker - the drummer)... i am always reminded that the 'grandmothers' are calling us.... beckoning us to return to what we know...

...the 'knower and the known' is inside all of us...

Folk ask me how i learned to drum and i'm never sure what to say - as i have always drummed... from since i can remember... i have never taken any formal training... it seems to come naturally... at least that is what i've been told over and over..............so...

What does 'naturally' mean?  Here is one meaning...

"...unthinking; prompted by (or as if by) instinct; ........offering to help was as instinctive as breathing" 

We are not machines...

Breathing is our natural rhythm... holding our breath is not natural...

I have to admit that i have a hard time playing with a metronome because i feel it is so 'un-natural' - it just doesn't 'feel' right... i once got fired from being the drummer in a band because i didn't like playing with a metronome - the members of the band told me i wasn't a very good 'time-keeper' - one member told me she couldn't believe how i could get along playing music without one - this surprised me...

I feel the metronome makes me try too hard and forces me to play 'in my head' and then i lose connection to the life-pulse of the music of my soul...  i tend to stop breathing and get pretty uptight.... it is linear - and, not from the heart... it's too hard in this place - i stop playing - it becomes 'work'... when i play music i want to feel it...so others can feel it too...

I am not a machine and neither are you... yes, metronomes can be useful and they do have their place where appropriate...

I have always approached 'playing' music and the drum through how and where i feel - the drum brings me to presence - to the present moment of 'now'... i connect with my drum as relationship... where, in knowing, sensing along with the drum i'm about to play also has a spirit just as i do - as one...

...say hello - get to know each other... listen...
...what do you hear? ...what song does the drum want to share with you?

the standing people
lovingly ground us...
- photo by weaver © 2012

... the drum is made from the spirit of wood and skin...  a living, breathing being with much to teach me and you...

...the standing people - the great, tall trees ground us to our blessed earth mother.... and so does the sacred drum...

...the skin... the hide connects us to the spirit of the animal that willingly gave it's life to become a sacred drum for you to caretake and connect to... the mallet or our hands connect us to these great spirits.......

Place your loving hands upon your dear drum gently... feel her... love her... and she will love you... and feel you...

When i sit down or stand to play a drum i first connect with great spirit, all-that-is and also the drum's spirit and then i know the drum is connecting with my spirit too - it's all about 'right relationship'...

...i can't 'think' when i play the sacred drum... because the sacred drum comes from the 'heart'...

The blessed spirit drum also connects us to our blessed earth mother - as she is the voice of our mother... the best way to connect to our earth mother is through the sacred drum - her pulse-voice can heal us...... we can heal her - heart-to-heart... envision the 'healed-state' for her and for us.... what we focus upon will come back to us... what will we choose to dream into being....?

...I invite you to get quiet... take some time out of your busy lives and simply listen... our great mother is calling us back to 'right relationship'.... of ayni... of connection and co-creation as one....

The sacred drum connects us and frees us - the drum helps to 'clear the way'... of whatever is in 'the way"... the sacred drum is a blessed gift of healing...

When i drum from my heart, that is when i feel i can drum my best because it aligns me... drumming from my heart allows me to just let go and ride the wave of playing - to get the 'me' out of the way... A number of times when i have drummed from this place of heart i have not known how i have drummed at all.... as i feel spirit has guided my arms and hands - it is not me playing.... it is the spirit of the sacred drum....

...the sacred drum is 'playing' me...!

Many years ago i stumbled upon a wonderful book called "The Way of the Pulse" beautifully written by Dr. John Diamond... reading this book over and over reaffirms much that i have learned from the sacred drum and continues to teach me more each time about how to get out of my head when i drum or play music...

I wanted to share this cool book, one of my favourites with you so that it may touch you as well and help you to re-member too... below are just a few excerpts that you may enjoy...

Thank you sooo much Dr. Diamond for eloquently teaching us how to ride the pulse of spirit to connect and play our drums from our heart... to not judge and be so hard on ourselves...

Always enjoy your drum and have fun playing ALL WAYS!

with much light and love.... weaver x (((o)))

The Way of the Pulse by
Dr. John Diamond available
@ Amazon...

Some True Drumming Basics  - some excerpts...by Dr. John Diamond

• Every musician emphasizes a different aspect of the totality of the song.  Yours is the most important – for rhythm is the most basic as it commences at the beginning of life, in the womb.

• Choose the drum whose soul you can most easily find.  This will be the one that most expands your chest, opens your heart.

• Feel your chest resonate with the drum.

• The more the palms are up, the more you can give – as  your arms come down, think up – always up.  Let the music lift.  Let it rise up.

•  Loose wrists, body free.  Let your whole body do the playing.

• Love your left hand. (or your less dominant hand) It wants to play easier – and it will.

• Concentrate on the interface of stick (or hand) and head.  Exactly where they meet, every time they do.  All creation is at the interface.

• Don’t judge your playing – for then it is not play, but hard work.  Just aim to refine your intention.

•  Think of the drum as your mother.  Are you treating her right?

•  Remember it’s an instrument of of love – not war.

•  It’s not the volume, but the intensity of the feeling, at even the quietest level.

• Feel the Music flowing through all your body.

•  Come forward into the music, in the audience, into yourself.

•  Don’t play the drums – allow them to play you.  This is called the transcendental experience.

• Always keep in mind that all of you, your Totality – body, mind and spirit – is transmitted in each and every note.

•  Give all of yourself.  This is me.  Here I am.  All of me, now.

•  Play with your heart:  wholehearted.  And with Passion:  all your fire, filled with Enthusiasm.

•  Music can be the easiest way to Heaven on earth – if we want it to be.

•  Look at your hands dancing like Fred Astaires’s feet.

•  Be free – take risks.  You are safe.

•  Always play the melody – and sing it.

•  Hear the lullaby in the bass.  Feel it.  Let it roll around and around.

•  Imagine the drum is your heart, open in song.  The music its pulse.

•  Be always aware of your breath.  Never jam it.  It must always be free, for only then are you free.  You can’t breathe freely to a metronome or click track.  For they are the beat.  The free breath ebbs and flows to its own deep pulsations.

• When you are playing on the Pulse, it feels like the drum is playing you.

• Get on the wave of the Pulse, and ride it effortlessly all the way to the beach!

• I am real, I’m alive, I breathe.  I pulsate.  I am not a machine.  If they want  the beat, they can buy a metronome.

• Don’t count – feel.  When the math comes in, the joy goes out.

• Play with joy, with a smile.  If you aren’t enjoying it – stop.

• Never just practice – that’s just the brain.  Always play, even if the audience is afar.  That’s the heart as well.

Excerpted from The Way of the Pulse by Dr. John Diamond - one of my most favourite books of all time - i highly recommend it!

Video... weaver just foolin' around on her clay dumbeck drum...

 

the power of the healing drum + a medical study - group drumming boosts your immune system...

Lately, i've been thinking about rhythm and also the benefits of drumming... and so, wanted to share some things i have learned over the years... 

"If you could see your DNA, you'd see what your inside rhythm looks like... You are rhythm... You are made of flesh, bones - and rhythm... Rhythm is what keeps you alive -- Mickey Hart

Within our bodies, we have the rhythm of breath, the rhythm of our heart and the rhythm of our blood pulsing through our veins.  We are nothing but rhythm within and out...

Sometime when you have a moment... just sit quiet and just listen to the diverse rhythms around and within you... listen to the rhythm of a bird's song... the drumming of a flicker woodpecker... a squirrel's chatter...  the ticking of the clock on the wall... the crackling of a hot fire... the constant passing of traffic on the freeway... the swishing of the wind swaying the branches of a tree or in the grasses... the honking of a truck's horn... the gentle drops of a spring rain... the gentle in and out of your own breath...  that annoying drip on the kitchen faucet...

I have to giggle sometimes when folk tell me that they can't or don't know how to drum... i aways say, "of course you do! ...because the first thing you ever heard was your own mother's constant heart-beat - that's all you knew and heard while in her womb all that time... it's the first thing you learned... that constant pulse was all you knew! - so, yes... you know how to drum - it's the very first thing you were taught!" 


Everyone knows how to drum - everyone who has a mother... a grandmother and our blessed earth mother...


I love this powerful teaching by sister drummer Layne Redmond...

“It is often said that the first sound we hear in the womb is our mother's heartbeat. Actually, the first sound to vibrate our newly developed hearing apparatus is the pulse of our mother's blood through her veins and arteries. We vibrate to that primordial rhythm even before we have ears to hear. Before we were conceived, we existed in part as an egg in our mother's ovary. All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month-old fetus in the womb of her mother.

This means our cellular life as an egg begins in the womb of our grandmother. Each of us spent five months in our grandmother's womb and she in turn formed within the womb of her grandmother. We vibrate to the rhythms of our mother's blood before she herself is born. And this pulse is the thread of blood that runs all the way back through the grandmothers to the first mother. We all share the blood of the first mother - we are truly children of one blood."  -- Layne Redmond

Outside of ourselves are endless universal rhythms all around us... every 365 days our blessed earth mother revolves around father sun... while every 28 days, grandmother moon revolves around our mother earth... ever 24 hours our earth mother rotates (spins and dances) on her axis... since the beginning of time, these cycles have intertwined and are the background against which our universe exists...

Another great quote i love...

"Rhythm lives within everyone, and it's not something special.  People don't have to have professional musical talents and techniques to express their rhythmical spirit.  Everyone has a rhythmical sensibility within and how they express it differs from person to person.  Rhythm permeates everyone's life.  It is in everything we do, we see, we feel and it is within the rhythms of our bodies, as well.  Rhythm is a fact of life."   -- Arthur Hull

The voice of the drum is the bridge to the spirit realm... The pulse connecting us to our blessed earth mother's heartbeat... and the circular shape is that of the hoop of life.

The earth is round... the moon is round... the season's turn 'round and the stars and planets are round... 

A circle is on of the most natural forms found in our physical universe... it has no beginning and no end..

"Blessed am I... Holy am I... I am the infinite within myself... I can find no beginning... I can find no end... Oh, this I Am!" -- traditional chant

Since the beginning of time, peoples have gathered together in circles in ceremony and ritual fashion to celebrate and to pray in community.

Participating in a drum circle creates community almost instantly... as soon as we begin to drum together and we entrain together... we become one -- we become community... we also have fun, we sing, dance, play music and socialize... 

Drumming together mindfully and in a sacred way - by acknowledging our spirit and helper-spirits and our ancestors - those who have come before us also connects us in a very special way... we embrace purpose and again "one-ness" of "like- mind"...

Drumming together is also just plain fun... when we drum together, we can let down our guard, relax and let go thus reduce stress and worry... the sacred drum also clears the way on many levels... drum vibrations and sacred sound massage our bodies, our head, our brain and calms our mind... and also creates physical exercise...

"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life -- Berthold Auerbach

A while back a medical study done by a team of MD's using control groups and blood tests show drumming together boosts the immune system. 

It's now been proven that stress is a cause of 98% of most disease.  Recent biofeedback studies show that drumming along with our own heart beat rhythm for at least 15 minutes a day alters brainwave patterns (increasing alpha) and dramatically reduces stress...

So, drumming actually "meditates" us!

...................................................

Medical Study: Group Drumming Boosts Immune System

A brand new medical research study indicates that group drumming boosts the immune system. Published in the January, 2001, issue of Larry Dossey’s Alternative Therapies the ground-breaking study was performed at Meadville Medical Center’s Mind-Body Wellness Center, by a team of MDs using control groups and blood tests.

Led by well-known researcher, author and cancer expert Barry Bittman, MD, CEO of Meadville Medical Center’s Mind-Body Wellness Center in Meadville, PA, the study shows that group drumming actually increases cancer-killing (NK) cells which help the body combat not only cancer but other viruses, including AIDS.

According to Dr. Bittman, “Group drumming tunes our biology, orchestrates our immunity, and enables healing to begin… When our hands connect with a drum that vibrates with our energy, vitality…and unity, we become whole again.” Dr. Bittman’s weekly radio program, Mind-Body Matters, is syndicated nationwide on NPR.

This new medical research follows recent biofeedback research showing that even brief heartbeat drumming can double alpha (a light meditative brainwave) and reduce stress. We now know that stress depresses the immune system and has been linked to nearly all diseases.

Drumming has also been used successfully with Alzheimer’s patients to focus attention, with war veterans to end trauma, with addicts in recovery from drug and alcohol abuse, and with prison and homeless populations to enhance self-esteem. Progressive corporations like Motorola, AT & T and Levi Strauss have drummed with middle management to promote team spirit-building.

Widely published research also indicates that playing musical instruments increases kids learning abilities. This appears especially true of instruments which can be played intuitively, like the drum. Qualitative studies have shown that drumming enhances right-brain functions such as intuition and creativity.

“Dreams are the way the unconscious speaks to the conscious mind. Ritual is how the conscious mind speaks back. One-sided conversations are unhealthy for the psyche, which craves response. New thought writings on addiction suggest that we are hungry, that our souls are starved because our lives are devoid of ritual.

“We keep trying desperately and unsuccessfully to feed this hunger with food, drugs, sex, alcohol, work, shopping, gambling, etc. Drumming is one of the most accessible forms of ritual because drumming along with our own heartbeat is so natural. It calms, centers, and reconnects us with our deeper selves.”

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"The drum is the Great Spirit's favourite instrument.  That is why we were given  a heartbeat. -- Mano, Navajo Elder